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In the year 2001, with the acquisition of the entire Looney Tunes library, Cartoon Network made grand plans for that year's annual "June Bugs" marathon...they were going to air every single Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made! This would have been the first time in history that every Bugs cartoon would be shown back-to-back.
Of course, people were concerned that a number of Bugs's adventures, especially a few produced in the 1940s during World War II, would offend some members of the audience. Cartoon Network guaranteed that they would play them all, quietly scheduling some of the more-controversial cartoons late at night when few kids were watching. A disclaimer was to crawl across the bottom of the screen during this special late night block to explain that these cartoons were being aired for the sake of historical completeness.
Unfortunately, just a month before the marathon was to air, Cartoon Network announced that it would in fact pull twelve specific Bugs cartoons from the marathon line-up, fearing public outrage despite its original meticulous plans to air them in a historical context. Originally, as a slight way to compensate Bugs fans, the network was planning to instead air a special episode of its Toonheads anthology series. Called "12 Missing Hares," the episode was to feature clips of the twelve shelved cartoons, explaining why they were removed from the marathon. The episode never aired, and in fact it was feared lost for many years until a workprint version finally surfaced publicly in August 2022 on YouTube.
Ultimately, and surprisingly, at least one of the pulled cartoons did in fact make it to the air during the marathon, while others had since been shown on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang.
The "12 Missing Hares" (not to be confused with another infamous group of controversial Warner Bros. cartoons called the "Censored Eleven") that Cartoon Network originally suppressed were:
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt
All This and Rabbit Stew
Any Bonds Today?
What's Cookin' Doc?
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips
Herr Meets Hare
A Feather in His Hare
Mississippi Hare
Frigid Hare
Which Is Witch
Bushy Hare
Horse Hare
Most of the twelve had already been released on home video prior to the shelving, and a number of them eventually made their way to DVD and Blu-ray as well.
That cartoon, featuring the famous squaredance performed by Bugs ("Grab a fencepost, hold it tight...") is called Hillbilly Hare. It was finally released on home video in 1993.
Yes it is! It's called Wabbit Twouble and was directed by Tex Avery and Robert Clampett!
Because it wasn't really titled on screen, it has been informally referred to in a variety of ways, such as Leon Schlesinger Presents Bugs Bunny or Bugs Bunny Bonds Rally and the like. But the real, official title of this trailer is Any Bonds Today? That was the cartoon's title during production and release, with theaters even advertising bookings of it (again, ads for a trailer!) under that name.
In the future we will have a special deep-dive article on our site about the origins and release of Any Bonds Today? No, we don't know when. Stay tuned!
Bugs has had two encounters with the giant hairy Gossamer. They have appeared together in the cartoons Hair-Raising Hare and Water, Water Every Hare. Each cartoon has been released numerous times on home video.
Gossamer has also appeared with Daffy Duck in Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24 1/2th Century. That cartoon was first made available on the Marvin the Martian: Space Tunes video.
Like Gossamer, Bugs has had two adventures with Hugo, the abominable snowman. And both The Abominable Snow Rabbit and Spaced Out Bunny have been released on video.
Well, obviously Amazon carries any and all in-print Looney Tunes home video releases, while out-of-print titles on various formats can also be found in its seller marketplace.
As far as physical stores go, any music store worth its salt should be able to order Looney Tunes DVDs and Blu-rays for you, with places like FYE usually having the bigger in-store selections.
Older and out-of-print video releases can be found anywhere! Discount stores, flea markets, yard sales, eBay, anywhere! And of course, if you still have a video rental store near you, you never know what you might find in their "previously viewed for sale" bins!
There are two, Rabbit of Seville and the classic What's Opera, Doc? (in which Bugs and Elmer sing Wagner).
There are also two cartoons in which Bugs acts as a conductor. One to a large blond opera singer that has been harassing Bugs (Long-Haired Hare) and one in which a fly gets in the way of Bugs conducting Von Suppe (Baton Bunny).
From 1999 to 2001, Columbia House produced a series of fifteen Looney Tunes video cassettes called Looney Tunes: The Collector's Edition as a part of its collection of "TV Greats" video releases. Each VHS compilation contained on average eleven cartoons, usually with some common theme. Some of the cartoons had been restored with original title sequences and, with the exceptions of those utilizing the Cartoon Network "dubbed version" prints, the shorts overall looked pretty good for a VHS release.
Although they pop up on eBay and can be ordered individually from Amazon Marketplace sellers, the videos could only be officially ordered direct from Columbia House. Despite common belief, this was NOT the same thing as the "12 albums for 3 pennies" trap that everyone is afraid of. Think of the Looney Tunes videos as a subscription service. You order the first one, they'd send it to you, and then you could decide if you want to keep it or send it back for a refund. At any time, you were able to call and tell them that you did not want to receive any additional volumes. If you didn't, then every month Columbia House would bill you for the next video in the series and send it to you until you had all fifteen. That was it. Signing up only applied for the Looney Tunes series. They didn't own you for life, there were no hidden charges later on, and once you were done you were done. It was perfectly safe to order.
However, with the DVD format making complete seasons of television shows available in retail stores (and with Looney Tunes becoming readily available on the format sixty at a time), Columbia House's line of videos became more or less obsolete, and by 2005 the company stopped offering subscription services for any series.
In April 2009 Yahoo announced that it would be shutting down its Geocities web service, and all web sites utilizing the service would disappear. We decided to fold this site into our parent company's web site to better ensure that people will be discovering Bugs and tracking down his shorts on home video for years to come.
First, you're lying. Nobody did.
There were a variety of reasons, but essentially it was done to make the site easier to read.
For the longest time in the previous century, all Looney Tunes home video releases were either on video cassette or laserdisc. But now with DVD and Blu-ray releases, that makes four different formats to keep track of. Although we could very well have simply added a "DVD releases only" page, it seemed that by combining all the releases it would be easier for visitors to not have to cross-check all the pages. And the fact remains that until we get the studio's complete library on any one format, many fans are going to have to be "multi-format collectors."
And as new releases are announced or released, our new format makes it easier for updates. In the past to add a new title, we would have to renumber the shorts on all previous releases. After a while, it made up-to-the-minute updates to the site less of a priority. Now, just try to stop us from updating this thing!
Also, despite having a FAQ page here to help and the numerous other resources in print or online, it seemed that the one thing Bugs fans wanted most on this site were descriptions of the cartoons. In order to accommodate something like that for approximately 180 films, some major rethinking of the format was in order. Keeping the old format while adding synopses that would repeat ad nauseam would be a strain on the eyes and would eat up tremendous amounts of space, which could result in serious delays in getting the site to load properly.
So, we hope that we've succeeded in making this site a better experience for you, fellow Bugs fans.
Bear with us on this explanation, as it seems more confusing than it really is. The listings throughout our site are for English-language collections that are in the NTSC color system, which is the North American standard. Japan also uses the NTSC system, and since their laser and disc releases featured both Japanese- and English-language tracks, it would not be impossible for an American collector to purchase and watch them.
